Rather than following through on a vow to "hunt every single one of" Twitter's executives and directors "till the day they die," Elon Musk has reached an agreement to pay the executives he swindled out of $200 million in vesting shares.
Musk biographer Walter Isaacson claimed Musk had said both the quote about hunting Twitter's executives, as well as a snide comment about ripping them off: "Two-hundred-million differential in the cookie jar." Both comments wound up cited in the legal filings against him. Musk has until Halloween to pay up, or the lawsuit continues.
The lawsuit was filed in March 2024 after a lengthy dispute with the former execs, who accused Musk of closing the $44 billion Twitter acquisition early to "cheat" them out of $200 million before their stock options vested the following day. The complaint cites a quote from Musk in Walter Isaacson's Elon Musk biography, saying that closing the deal a day early would create a "two-hundred-million differential in the cookie jar," and claims that the billionaire told Isaacson he would "hunt every single one of" Twitter's executives and directors "till the day they die."
The lawsuit against Musk and X will resume on October 31st if the settlement terms haven't been met. X also settled "thousands" of cases in August after former employees who were laid off during a mass firing sued the company in 2022 for failing to provide the required 60 days of advance notice prior to termination.
The Verge
Previously:
• Musk vows to crush Media Matters with a 'thermonuclear' lawsuit
• EFF sues Musk: Keep your grubby mitts off our government worker data
• Court finds Tesla's 'Full Self Driving' to be 'corporate puffery'
• Musk sues data scrapers in a futile bid to save Twitter
• Grimes sues Elon Musk
